News

Water Institute member Rebecca Rooney discusses the value of wetlands and the risk they face in Ontario

By Angelica Marie Sanchez, University Relations

Thursday, February 2 marks World Wetlands Day, an international government agreement acknowledging the importance of wetlands and their ecological role in conserving our ecosystems.

“Wetlands are these climate change superheroes,” says Water institute member Dr. Rebecca Rooney, a wetland ecologist and professor in the Department of Biology. “Wetlands are a portfolio of ecosystem services: including flood prevention, breaking down pesticides, storing large amounts of carbon, and provide habitat for more than 32 per cent of Ontario species at risk who rely on these wetlands to mitigate climate change.”

In the latest research from the forWater Network, scientists have found that fires in forested source water regions can significantly accelerate fine sediment transport from hillslopes to receiving streams. The mobilization of fine sediment and associated nutrients, such as phosphorus (P), into high quality surface waters can substantially increase primary productivity, which can severely degrade water quality, threaten aquatic ecosystem health, and challenge drinking water treatability to the point of service disruptions.

Springer Nature has launched Volume 1, Issue 1 of its latest Journal Nature Water,offering a new avenue for the publication of the latest research and discovery related to water resources.

Nature Water will be a monthly, exclusively online publication publishing world-class water research, spanning natural sciences, engineering and social sciences.

A message from the Cheriton School of Computer Science.

Water Institute memberProfessor Jimmy Lin has been named a 2022 ACM Fellow for his contributions to question answering, information retrieval, and natural language processing.

The Association for Computing Machinery is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM fellowships are conferred to the top 1 percent of the association’s members, and the prestigious recognition indicates outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

World-renowned hydrogeologist and groundwater advocate Dr. John Cherry to present the Water Institute’s WaterTalks lecture on Wednesday, January 18, 2023

The Water Institute in collaboration with the Faculty of Science, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, is delighted to welcome Dr. John Cherry, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Hydrogeology, as the opening lecturer for the 2023 WaterTalks lecture series. The lecture will be presented on Wednesday, January 18 and is free to the campus community, alumni and the public.

The groundwater community is mourning the recent passing of Dr. Emil Frind, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Groundwater Modelling from the University of Waterloo’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He passed away on Sunday, December 25, 2022, at the age of 90.

Dr. Frind pioneered the field of quantitative groundwater science and was a leader in the development of modelling methodologies for groundwater processes. 

Talking about complex societal issues requires trusted experts to combat disinformation

This article originally appeared in the Global Futures report.

Water Institute member Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher is the Canada Research Chair in Science, Health and Technology Communication and leading expert on how communication practices shape how people engage with scientific and technical subject matters.

The growth of online platforms has changed the way information is being shared and has led to a rise in misinformation. However, informed societies are necessary in addressing critical issues that require collective action such as pandemics and climate change. Mehlenbacher was asked how we should communicate and share knowledge to positively advance society and ensure communities thrive.

Founder Fuel: Student startup develops novel thermochemical process to improve the world

By The Faculty of Engineering

The entrepreneurship ecosystem at Waterloo Engineering nurtures promising ideas into thriving enterprises. In their weekly Founder Fuel series, they look at new ventures and how they have benefited from that crucial early support.

Congratulations to Water Institute member Janusz Pawliszyn, Professor, Department of Chemistry, who is the 2023 winner of the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) Medal – the CIC’s top award!

Professor Pawliszyn, Canada Research Chair and NSERC Industrial Research Chair in New Analytical Methods and Technologies, was awarded this medal for his outstanding contribution to the science of chemistry in Canada.

The novel software and mapping method will yield both real-time and two-dimensional flood models

By Naomi Grosman, Velocity

As an environmental engineering undergraduate nearly a decade ago, Robert Chlumsky, now a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Engineering, forged a professional relationship with his professors, Dr. James Craig and Dr. Bryan Tolson.

It was fostering that relationship and the research it produced that resulted in the trio receiving funding for Blackbird, a software and a new method for floodplain mapping that could potentially impact flood mitigation and response.